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Microwaved plastic containers release microplastics into food
- sizzle 3y agoIs borosilicate glass the safest material for storing dry and wet (acidic) food or sauces? Or do I have to worry about some toxic chemical adulterant used in the process of making glass that is going to leech out (lead?)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- hu3 3y agoI would love to read the full paper but it is gated behind paywall and I can't possibly pay for every article that I find interesting.
- mandmandam 3y agoI've heard that a lot of the time the authors are happy to email you the paper directly, if you ask. Basically no one likes the academic paywalls, except for the world's most awful people [not an exaggeration].
- placesalt 3y agoI don’t like the academic publishing racket either, but that is an exaggeration. Presumably you were being sarcastic, but it’s still caustic. What stereolab called easy cynicism.
- mandmandam 3y agoMy comment replying to this shouldn't be flagged. It's well sourced, relevant, and polite. If anyone would like to explain what that was about, I'd love to hear it.
- mandmandam 3y ago[flagged]
- placesalt 3y ago[flagged]
- mandmandam 3y ago[flagged]
- iopq 3y agoHere https://mega.nz/file/5Bgn1R4K#6BlIb9hUCxc_7JdQq7vvE6YqtCBpsDhFauH2ZtyTzXs https://mega.nz/file/5Bgn1R4K#6BlIb9hUCxc_7JdQq7vvE6YqtCBpsD...
- hu3 3y agoBless you! > The highest EDI of these particles for infants occurred when they drank microwaved water stored in a plastic container, while for toddlers, it was when they consumed microwaved dairy products in a container. These findings emphasize the necessity of collaborating with manufacturers to establish guidelines for the appropriate usage of plastic containers. Additionally, it is crucial to work with caregivers in order to raise awareness about the potential impact of these particles. So parents, beware of feeding bottles!
- kevincox 3y ago[dead]
- RamblingCTO 3y agoOh uh, not good. I'm heating my lunch in a plastic container. Dammit. Glass is way too heavy!
- nailer 3y agoPut your lunch onto a plate and pop a bowl on top of it to prevent spillage. Ceramic doesn’t react.
- dekken_ 3y agoor put the food in a bowel and put a plate on top of it ;) this, and microwave heating longer on low is my go to for consistent temps
- RamblingCTO 3y agoHm, right! Carry it to work in plastic, heat it on a plate. I'm doing that occasionally. Weird I didn't think of that and wanted to buy glass containers haha
- quaintdev 3y agoWhy we don't use glassware? It's perfect for food. 1. Easy for cleaning 2. Good glass container will look new for years with proper washing 3. It breaks. So it requires full attention of person handling it. We all want to live in present moment, don't we? Use glassware and you will be in the present moment more often ;)
- trallnag 3y agoHow do you seal glass containers?
- moffkalast 3y agoSome of us do use it. It just has the slight problem of weighing 200 tons which makes it mildly impractical for anything but use at home.
- devoutsalsa 3y agoAt least we don’t know our neighbors anymore. We wouldn’t want to get invited to a potluck, bring our scalloped potatoes in a Pyrex dish, leave the leftovers with the host, and never got our dish back.
- slashdev 3y agoMmmm. Cheesy scalloped potatoes. I haven’t had that for a long time. One of my most treasured possessions is a folded piece of paper on which my mom hand wrote her cheesy scalloped potatoes recipe for me.
- kevincox 3y agoOn the other hand I find that they tend to close tight and be robust. So they are great for throwing in backpacks. Without care most plastic containers will flex and pop open. The weight isn't much issue for one or two containers in a backpack. Health concerns aside a sturdy plastic container would likely be the best option here, lighter and more durable (think Nalgene bottle quality) but those are very hard to find.
- Frummy 3y agoIt's great to have some science on it but a lot of people have considered this common sense for one or two decennia.
- avidphantasm 3y agoAgreed. I haven’t microwaved food in plastic for 20+ years. It just always seemed gross. My biggest beef with plastic containers is that once washed with cheap dish soap (e.g. Dawn) the plastic container and any food stored in it always an forever smell and taste like the fragrance in the soap. I don’t find this to be a problem when using 7th Generation dish soap, which I consider to be far superior.
- Clamchop 3y agoInteresting, I view Dawn as name-brand, maybe premium product and thought it was well-regarded, though maybe that's all those advertisements with oil-soaked animals getting cleaned up doing a number on me. Never had a complaint or noticed a residual odor, though.
- renox 3y agoMicrowaved plastic is obviously something to avoid I agree but what I would like to know is what happens on plastic plates in washing machine?
- avidphantasm 3y agoGood question. The only plastic dishes we have are the lids to our glass leftover containers. I always wash these by hand as it seems to me that the extreme heat of the dishwasher degrades the plastic (and probably causes god knows what to leach out of the plastic) and causes the lids to crack (kind of like plastic left out in UV light) and to fail seemingly sooner than they otherwise would.
- gumby 3y agoWell they will shed tons of microplastics and the placticisers will gradually leach out due to heat and the harsh dishwasher soap. That eventually destroys your plastic stuff, but the stuff shed goes down the drain and becomes someone else's problem (except you'll get some back when you eat fish, for example). The same thing happens with your clothes, which these days include a lot of plastic fabric, buttons, etc.
- GTP 3y agoIt was already known that some kinds of plastic release microplastic particles when heated. I assume this is why we have some plasticware that is labeled as being suitable for microwave oven usage, but at quick glance at the abstract doesn't seem they considered this difference. It would be interesting to know the amount of micropastic released by "microwave suitable" plastic vs common plastic.
- gumby 3y ago"microwave suitable" just means "this won't melt if you put it once into the microwave". Almost as bad as "flushable wipes" which technically can be flushed but should never be as they clog the plumbing and sewer systems. By the same definition airpods and wedding rings are flushable too.
- Clamchop 3y agoI've read that the controversy re: flushable wipes is a case of mistaken identity, both on the part of consumers (who might assume all wipes are flushable) and sanitation engineers (misidentifying baby wipes etc as flushable ones, which should be way disintegrated). If wipes marketed as flushable were such a clear and direct problem, the iron-clad lawsuits would have wiped (heh) them off the market by now. If you're super bored, you can watch videos of flushable wipes being tested. They disintegrate quickly, as designed.
- heftig 3y agoYeah, toilet paper is supposed to rapidly fall apart when it's wet. If the wipes don't do the same thing they're not actually flushable.
- jahav 3y agoI am shocked! shocked! Well, not that shocked. Still, don't heat stuff for the infants in a plastic.
- asielen 3y agoI wonder if silicone has any of the same issues. It seems that the "safe" trend.
- meindnoch 3y agohttps://www.nontoxu.com/plastics-silicone/silicone-toxicity https://www.nontoxu.com/plastics-silicone/silicone-toxicity
- zild3d 3y ago> don't heat stuff for the infants in a plastic. Or any human
- meindnoch 3y agoBottle-fed babies consume millions of microplastic particles every day.
- pmoriarty 3y agoI've long ago stopped cooking or putting hot food in plastic containers.. not because of this but because of the possibility other harmful substances leeching from the plastic in to my food. Sure, there are some plastics labeled "for safe" and "BPA-free", but that doesn't guarantee some other plastic that's used doesn't contain harmful substances or cause as yet unknown side effects that just haven't been found by researchers yet. This goes double for new plastics which haven't had much research done on them yet but that manufacturers can honestly claim don't contain BPA. Those kinds of assurances just aren't good enough, as this study shows.
- gumby 3y ago> Sure, there are some plastics labeled "for safe" and "BPA-free" Indeed, it's common to substitute bisphenol-B for bisphenol-A in these situations.
- actionfromafar 3y agoCome buy our DDT-free, strontium laced laxative now!
- myshpa 3y agoMore than 50 different chemicals are now pumped into consumer products in place of BPA. These BPA-free alternatives can be as bad as — or worse than — the original. https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/many-bpa-free-plastics-are-toxic-some-are-worse-than-bpa https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/many-bpa-free-plasti...
- danielbln 3y agoAs a daily Aeropress user, I wonder if I should maybe switch to something else. Thoughts?
- brainzap 3y agoI just accepted it that everytime I push down it will probably scrape some plastic into the drink
- gonzo41 3y agoGreat news, my local council outlawed or out regulated throw away plastic food containers so everything is not in waxed cardboard. Which holds up about as long as the food is actually safe to eat. So win win.
- andrewstuart 3y agoMore of this needed. Australian politicians too weak for stuff like this.
- defrost 3y ago>> From 1 February 2023, Victorians cannot purchase, or be supplied with single-use plastic drinking straws, plates, cutlery, drink stirrers, cotton bud sticks or expanded polystyrene food service items and drink containers from any business or organisation. These items cannot be sold or given away for free. https://www.vic.gov.au/single-use-plastics https://www.vic.gov.au/single-use-plastics Other Australian states* have either already done this or have it in their legislative pipeline. ( * except for Tasmania )
- tohnjitor 3y agoHow much do you want to bet that the wax is actually just another plastic?
- arsome 3y agoThat cardboard ain't waxed, it's covered in plastic.
- lscdlscd 3y agoI wouldn't necessarily say that. The cardboard/wax tears quite easily, and the wax tears with the cardboard. I don't think a plastic film would do that.
- jaapz 3y agoWe're currently going through plastics being banned for snack foods where I live, and even vendors that were using "cardboard" boxes are hit because they are actually cardboard boxes lined with plastic (because cardboard + oil don't work together very well). Wax gets soft when heated, so I'd be really surprised if the cardboard you're talking about is actually using "wax".
- andrewstuart 3y agoSlightly off topic but I threw out all my pots and pans with non stick surfaces. Nothing will convince me it’s safe to cook food to high temperature on whatever that chemical coating is. And after a while you notice the surface is wearing away…. where is it going? Into you and your family. All my pots and pans are stainless steel.
- jb1991 3y agoCast iron is also a good material and great for cooking. A nice complement to your steel collection.
- dcormier 3y agoCarbon steel is nice, too. The pans made from it are often lighter than cast iron, which is a nice perk.
- cubefox 3y agoWhat's the difference compared to steel?
- mkonecny 3y agoIt's a bit of a misnomer. Steel is literally Iron + Carbon. So the carbon in carbon steel is redundant
- jb1991 3y agoThe main reason I like it is beacause after it is "seasoned", or after some regular use, it has a lot of the qualities of non-stick yet has none of the chemical coating.
- DannyBee 3y agoLook, i know it's a very popular thing to do, but A. it's a layer of burned, polymerized cooking oil. It is in fact a plastic. It is not particularly better for you. It's only non-stick in a weird sense that anything else that hasn't been cleaned is non-stick. B. it does not really prevent rust - if it did, we would use this instead of rust protectants :) C. Cast iron, unlike steel, generates mostly dust when it abrades. It is often machined dry with vacuum because it otherwise clogs up coolant systems (it makes a sort of mud). The dust is very bad for you. So everytime you scrape through that coating and abrade it, or microabrade it, you are probably getting cast iron dust in the air/lungs. I'm sure this will end up studied post PFAS and will be discovered to have been a similarly bad idea. Use steel - it "seasons" just fine (it turns out burned cooking oil will happily stick to lots of things), and doesn't have this issue.
- mrob 3y agoConverting the units to make comparison easier: Worst case ingested dose for toddlers: 22.1ng/kg·day Dose found to be toxic in vitro: 1,000,000,000ng/kg
- Aachen 3y agoWhere did you get the 1g figure from? I'm curious to read more about the circumstances under which they found toxicity, e.g. if that's acute rather than sustained across decades. Also, what does in vitro mean here? Do I remember correctly this means you're not dead?! Seems like an odd bit of jargon to add
- mrob 3y agoI'm assuming the solvent is water. You're right that it's not specified in the abstract. "In vitro" means "in glass", but the actual meaning is in any non-living container, no matter what it's made from, e.g. in a petri dish. If it's in a living organism it's "in vivo".
- myshpa 3y agoMicrowaving aside, food and plastics don't go well together. Study Finds Microplastics in More than 90 Percent of Tested Water Bottles https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/study-finds-microplastics-more-90-percent-tested-water-bottles-2-180968507/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/study-finds-microp... Just opening a plastic bottle can release thousands of microplastics https://www.newscientist.com/article/2237900-just-opening-a-plastic-bottle-can-release-thousands-of-microplastics/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2237900-just-opening-a-... Study: Plastic Baby Bottles Shed Microplastics When Heated. Should You Be Worried? https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/10/19/925525183/study-plastic-baby-bottles-shed-microplastics-when-heated-should-you-be-worried https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/10/19/9255251... NIST Study Shows Everyday Plastic Products Release Trillions of Microscopic Particles Into Water https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2022/04/nist-study-shows-everyday-plastic-products-release-trillions-microscopic https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2022/04/nist-study-sho... Occurrence of microplastics in raw and treated drinking water https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969718330663 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00489... Plastic bottles for chilled carbonated beverages as a source of microplastics and nanoplastics https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37354839/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37354839/ Plastic containers still distributed across the US are a potential health disaster https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/01/pfas-lawsuit-epa-plastic-containers-health-danger https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/01/pfas-law...
- cubefox 3y agoIt's not just food of course. A first overview of textile fibers, including microplastics, in indoor and outdoor environments https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0269749116312325 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02697... A Review of Human Exposure to Microplastics and Insights Into Microplastics as Obesogens https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34484127/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34484127/ International quantification of microplastics in indoor dust: prevalence, exposure and risk assessment https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35977640/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35977640/
- grugagag 3y ago
- bolangi 3y agoI'm shocked.
- nmpennypacker 3y agoLooks like the study was performed on a liquid, so I guess definitely don't microwave soup. Wonder if the effect is the same with a food that doesn't have as much contact with the container. Anyway, like many commenting here, microwaving food with plastic fallen in the "it just seems wrong" category for me, so it's business as usual.
- BallyBrain 3y agoDoes anyone know if this would include plastic lids on glass containers? or a plastic cover to stop whatever you're heating from splashing all over the microwave?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- born-jre 3y agoAs a Level 3 plastic hater, it's a wonderful curse. Whenever I see food and plastic together, I automatically think, "Has it been heated until it reached this point?" My mind goes, "Microplastic, microplastic!"
- graiz 3y agoGlass, Paper, and Aluminum. Startups working to bring these back will grow well over the next decade.
- DriverDaily 3y agoAluminum has its own problems leeching into acidic foods.
- asielen 3y agoInteresting that the mocha pot that is common in Europe for making espresso is traditionally aluminum. I wonder if that has been studied.
- christophilus 3y agoAluminum has its own problems. Paper really can't be used for anything with liquids unless it's lined with plastic or a plastic-equivalent, and that's probably a bad thing. From what I know, glass has no drawbacks other than fragility.
- saiya-jin 3y agoI gguess he meant glass as container and Al/paper for covers, otherwise it doesn't make sense. Al foodware was removed from all school canteens decades ago where I live, that shit ain't touching my food. Also, glass is heavy, so impractical for many uses. But yes seems largely inert unless you expose it to some weird fluorides (Things I won't work with series).
- floren 3y ago> Paper really can't be used for anything with liquids unless it's lined with plastic or a plastic-equivalent Beeswax probably melts too easily to be used for hot liquids but I bet it would do the trick with "moist" things if not full-on liquids. Bonus, greater demand for beeswax = cheaper honey and more bees around! :)
- egman_ekki 3y agoI’ve switched to glass bottles for my daughter pretty early on, but most of the bottles used for breast milk pumps are plastic (e.g. https://www.medela.com/breastfeeding/products/collecting/storage-bottles https://www.medela.com/breastfeeding/products/collecting/sto...), and are supposed to be boiled after each use for disinfection. I really wonder how durable they are and how much microplastic ends up in that breastmilk…
- floren 3y agoDo you store any milk in the fridge or freezer? I've been trying to find good glass containers for that and coming up pretty short.
- egman_ekki 3y agoDon’t store it in the fridge anymore, but using these and they are pretty good: https://www.mambaby.com/p/feel-good-260ml-forest-glass-baby-bottle/fc1b5zf001-hek21/ https://www.mambaby.com/p/feel-good-260ml-forest-glass-baby-...
- arsome 3y agoIs there any real evidence that consuming these is a problem though? Last I checked the evidence was shaky that this is even problematic for humans and read like a who's who of sketchy medical claims, up there with seed oils killing your testosterone.
- grugagag 3y agoWhy risk it when you could use a different container when microwaving? Convenience has a cost
- balder1991 3y agoIt’s not just about the containers if you look at the big picture. Micro plastic is everywhere nowadays and if you set yourself to avoid it you’ll have a hard time. Even opening a plastic bottle releases micro plastic in the environment and now all supermarket food comes in plastic. Also the accumulated plastic seems to be reaching us already from the food chain, with marine food being full of micro plastic which goes to our bodies. But maybe it’s worth avoiding it at all cost? That’s the big question.
- grugagag 3y agoMaybe at least avoid direct exposure when you can?
- AlecSchueler 3y agoI guess we'll all find out in 30 years from now.
- tenpies 3y agoThe really annoying thing is that when you bring up the generational decline of testosterone in men no one really cares. Then RFK Jr brings it up - quite validly - and now you have the entire Democrat-pharma industrial complex lumping it under "far-right conspiracy theory, probably funded by Russia and MAGA white supremacists who hate women and Muslims". The irony is that it's a problem that is clearly already having consequences already. It's quite likely it's behind some of the current issues both at the fringes (rapid onset gender dysphoria) and broadly in politics (see the correlation between male testosterone levels and voting patterns). It potentially wipes out humanity way before anything with climate change, but since it affects men, the West just doesn't care.
- noduerme 3y agoOK. Question about this. Microplastics have measurable negative effects on mammalian brains. That's been shown recently. I've never microwaved or cooked anything in plastic, and I've yelled at people who do since the 90s. Unfortunately, I break my own teeth a lot. I've shattered three of them in my sleep. It's not fun to wake up to a giant cracking sound in your head, realize your nerve is exposed, swallow part of a tooth and need immediate dental surgery. I started using over-the-counter night guards, which I chewed through like a fucking rabbit, little pieces of plastic all over. Finally, recently, I just paid for a "permanent" night guard. First of all, the way this is done now is amazing. It's a 3D scan of your teeth using a tiny camera wand, and the model is built in full color directly on the screen; I even pointed out to the dental tech, on the model, a red spot where a tortilla chip had wounded me the previous week. So they shipped me this perfect molded night guard which fits my upper teeth incredibly well, and feels like a gummy on the upper side. On the lower side, though, it has a harder shell and still takes the impact of my lower teeth. And after a few months, it's already starting to fray on the bottom. With both these things, I have no idea what's in them. PFAS? How much of this shit am I swallowing? Wearing it all night, every night, I wonder what the hell it's leaching into my brain. I don't think there are any real regulations on what they put into them, and they're clearly extraordinary mixes of different plastics.
- graeme 3y agoIt's a good question. Can't say I understand the details, but I looked into this years ago and Talon is the material my dentist mentioned. This site claims: "Safest Splint Tested: There is no discernible leaching of free monomer. Studies verify residual monomer level of only 0.14%" https://burbankdental.com/products/talon-splints/ https://burbankdental.com/products/talon-splints/ Believe this is the manufacturer's site here: https://www.moderndentalusa.com/product/talon-hard-soft-guard https://www.moderndentalusa.com/product/talon-hard-soft-guar...
- noduerme 3y agoThat looks like the thing. I would love to have it tested independently if I'm going to keep it in my mouth every night for the rest of my life. (And I'm now afraid not to).
- deelowe 3y agoBeen using an aeropress for years. Should I be concerned? It's so hard to get clear information on this. I thought PP was inert.
- turtleyacht 3y agoIf not the plastic, also the glass: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36535828 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36535828 - 7 hours ago
- steamer25 3y agoIt doesn't work for really wet foods like soup but I've been using wooden plates for e.g., microwave burritos. Since wood has a low dielectric loss, it's highly transparent to microwaves and therefore steals less energy away from heating the food than e.g., ceramic. I'm not sure about the toxicity of various wood sealers. I've been using butcher-block sealer which has e.g., bee's wax but also some more questionable substances. I'm interested in trying shellac but it's not overly cheap.
- 29athrowaway 3y agoAlso, dishwashers.
- oski 3y agoI would really like to see some research around PEX piping. How does it handle hot water? Does it release microplastics as well?
- jondwillis 3y agoStep one: get microscope. Step two: put mouth and teeth on plastic water bottle. Step three: look at plastic water bottle under microscope. Step four: start to reduce plastic in life based on what you have observed.
- oleganza 3y agoi'd imagine there would be plenty of pictures taken so you could link to one that's exceptionally convincing.
- barbazoo 3y agoOff topic but do any of the $40 for the 48h access go to any of the authors of the paper?
- FriedPickles 3y agoAnd how many microplastics are released the second time the container's microwaved? And the third? I'm all against microwaving brand new plastics (not a huge fan of take-out containers). But I suspect the plastic coffee brewer I've used ~1000 times has long since leached out anything that was going to leach out. I wonder if there's any research on this. It'd be cool if there were a commercial lab I could send a some samples to measure microplastics, the same way I can send my tap water to be tested for lead.
- ComplexSystems 3y agoI'm glad that civilization has gotten it together enough to produce this study. Clearly it took an exorbitant amount of planning and resources to do, and we shouldn't expect studies like this that often. But at long last, we now have hard evidence that microwaving food in plastic containers is bad, many decades after they were introduced as "microwave safe." As the burden of proof for something being unsafe is on us, the consumer, rather than the companies introducing novel elements into the food supply, this is an important milestone. Things are safe until proven otherwise, and it's up to us to do the work to prove we aren't just being paranoid about any health issues that arise. But now we can rest easy knowing that we're set up to get these misleading "microwave-safe" labels removed... a few decades from now. (/s. Anyone could have done this study at any time - all they did was to microwave water in plastic containers to see what would happen. I guess literally nobody has ever done that before, certainly not the companies labeling their products as "microwave safe." Maybe in another few decades, someone will look at what happens with Teflon coated pans.)
- salawat 3y agoThe limiting factor has always been access to expensive scientific equipment to actually run the experiment, then access to a reputible publishing channel. Scientific lab equipment, a las, is still a field ripe for more work on democratization. Mind, even that suffers from things like the War on Drugs making possession of lab paraphenalia (accurate scales, glassware, and other things needed for taking accurate/controlled measurements) a risky proposition. In fact, one could say, the System is tilted against the Citizen Scientist unaffiliated with an organization from the get-go.